Kia K900

Overview

Competitors

Full Review

2015

2014

2015 model shown

Tested: 2015 Kia K900 V-8

Test Location: Chelsea Proving Grounds (Chelsea, MI) - June 2014

EPA

0-60

Horsepower

Top Speed

15/23 mpg

5.5 sec

420 hp

149 mph

Overview:
Sister to Hyundai’s Equus, the K900 is a luxury sedan that marks Kia’s intent to move the brand up market. It’s a muscular four-door stuffed with leather, wood trim, and electronic amusements all standard. The base engine is a 311-hp V-6, while a 420-hp V-8 is optional. The steering is numb and the suspension is soft. Kia wants buyers to think the K900 is a value compared with its more-expensive competitors, but we’d rather spend less for a car that is more about driving than gadgets. Instrumented Test – 2015 Kia K900 V-8 »

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2015 Kia K900 V-8

Kia pitches a long-wheelbase luxury yacht at a bargain price.

Unlike some luxury cars that forgo cosseting ride quality for sporty pretensions, the 2015 Kia K900 stays true to the classic land-yacht formula. The latest step in Kia’s rapid expansion—even if it’s at odds with the company’s youthful, rockin’-hamster attitude—the K900 flagship takes the brand to new heights of Lexus-like quiet and isolation.

Movin’ On Up

The big K is based on a stretched version—by 4.3 inches in both wheelbase and length—of parent Hyundai’s outgoing Genesis sedan (Hyundai just introduced a new 2015 Genesis with a Lotus-tuned chassis and available all-wheel drive). As such, it’s Kia’s first rear-wheel-drive luxury sedan and second model with available V-8 power after the defunct Borrego SUV. The K900 is launching in the U.S. with a standard 5.0-liter Tau V-8 pumping out 420 horsepower and 376 lb-ft of torque, making it the most-powerful Kia ever. The V-8 is mated to Hyundai’s own eight-speed automatic, which works smoothly in most situations but tends to upshift early, even in its sportiest setting. It also includes a funky electronic joystick shifter that any modern BMW driver would sadly recognize.

Despite its being the quickest Kia we’ve ever tested—sprinting to 60 mph in 5.5 seconds and covering the quarter-mile in 14.1 at 101 mph—the K900 never feels particularly athletic or engaging. The powertrain purrs smoothly underhood and rarely calls attention to itself, the resulting serenity being ideal for cruising. A button on the console allows the driver to toggle among Sport, Normal, and Eco driving modes, which slightly alter throttle response, shift action, damper settings, and steering effort, but it’s best to leave it in the default setup.

The rest of the Kia’s performance figures—a modest 0.80 g of lateral grip and a 176-foot stop from 70 mph on 19-inch, all-season Hankook Optimo rubber—are merely adequate and reinforce the car’s indifference to driver involvement. The 4664-pound K900 floats down the road with noticeable—some might say nautical—pitch, roll, and dive motions. The steering lacks self-centering, necessitating frequent corrections on the highway. Very little makes its way up the steering column, save for some occasional shakes and quivers over rough pavement. Our observed fuel economy of 18 mpg is in line with the combined EPA rating on the window sticker.

Slow Your Roll

Yet all of this works if you can accept the K900 as a modern incarnation of the Lincoln Town Car, a sensory-deprivation warehouse on wheels that urges you to simply relax and enjoy the ride. The K900 is quieter at idle and full throttle than the latest Mercedes-Benz S550. The Kia’s styling is handsome but not overdone, there’s tons of space for stuff, the seats are La-Z-Boy comfy, and the interior is tastefully styled and easy to navigate with abundant hard buttons. The list of standard equipment at the K900’s $60,400 starting point is ridiculously long (you can read the full breakdown here), with our test car’s most notable features included in the $6000 VIP package’s adaptive cruise control, power-closing doors, 12.3-inch TFT digital instrument cluster, head-up display, barrage of exterior cameras, and power reclining and ventilated rear seats.

But the supple, oversized gorilla in the showroom is the salability of a $60,000 Kia with the dynamic acuity of a watercraft. Luxury cars will never be passé, but only time will tell if the K900 has the staying power of the big Lincoln or a Lexus LS. Or will it be Kia’s Volkswagen Phaeton, an ultimately overreaching attempt by a nonluxury brand? At a minimum, the K900 is honest about being a luxury car, and that counts for something.

The K900 is the least Kia-like Kia yet. Forget generic penalty boxes like the Sephia that Kia churned out when it entered the American market back in 1994. This is a big, wafting, silent, rear-wheel-drive luxury cocoon powered by a 420-hp, direct-injected 5.0-liter V-8.Sharing its wheelbase, powertrain, and suspension design with its corporate cousin the Hyundai Equus, the substance of the K900 is familiar. It’s also good: The engine pulls mightily and the eight-speed automatic transmission operates seamlessly. The suspension is tuned more for comfort than engagement and the steering is uncommunicative, but the tires always remain planted. The big disc brakes could stop the Earth’s tectonic plates from colliding.As its key selling point, the K900 comes loaded with a lengthy list of standard luxury features, including (but by no means limited to) a panoramic sunroof, a 900-watt surround sound audio system with 17 speakers and a subwoofer, satellite radio, voice-activated navigation, park assist, blind-spot detection, rear cross-traffic alert, lane-departure warning, pushbutton start, a heated steering wheel, and heated/ventilated front seats. There is more. Much more.But while the K900 carries all the current automotive gadgetry, so does every other luxury car available on the market. Many of them are well-established players in the luxury market; some of them cost less than this, Kia’s first attempt at the game. Where is that leap beyond the expected? The user interface of a $60,400 Kia should operate more like a Samsung Galaxy S4 than a poor imitation of BMW’s iDrive. After all, this is a luxury car that can’t sell on Kia’s prestige alone.